Pumpkin

Four-year-old Lily Wind was on a mission Sunday morning. With Scouser, her bulldog puppy nipping at the bottom of her Sleeping Beauty costume, Lily tracked through the Environmental Nature Center's Fall Faire pumpkin patch searching for her perfect pick. Carrying a supposed winner over to a rock where her family waited, she would tell her mother, "I like this one." Scanning the crop one more time just to be sure, another potentially perfect pumpkin caught her eye, leaving the one in her clutch forgotten, thudding to the ground, as she made a beeline for another round.

HUNTINGTON BEACH - The Newport Beach Aquatics Club took its largest squad yet to the 1999 Golden West Swim Club's "Pumpkin Meet" over the weekend. Swimming in 40 events, the NBAC took home 20 awards. The Most Valuable Swimmer awards went to Wyatt Wardall and Laura Thomas, who set personal-best times in three of their four events and Toury Adamowicz and Sam Boettner, who placed second and third respectively in each of their three events. Also swimming well was Tivoli Hudson.

KAREN WIGHT We moved into our house 15 years ago. Annie was 3 years old, I was pregnant with Breck, and last-but-never-least Mary Rose was not a twinkle in anyone's eye. We love the house and the feeling of community that comes with it. Most of the neighbors have been on the street for years. And we still have a few original owners who bought their lots in 1955 when the price was $100 per front footage. That made an 80-foot wide lot $8,000. Hurts, doesn't it?

If “Farmer” Mike Valladao’s streak holds up, Barack Obama should be the next president of the United States. For the past nine years — and through the last two presidential elections — Valladao has carved giant pumpkins at the swap meet at the Orange County Fair and Events Center in Costa Mesa. Each election year he carves side-by-side likenesses of the two major candidates for president and asks the audience members to cast mock ballots for the candidate whose likeness appeals most to them.

Marisa O'Neil If residents don't get their usual free pumpkin on the doorstep this year, Valerie Torelli wants them to know it's for a good reason. Each October for the past 19 years, the Costa Mesa real estate agent has delivered about 4,000 pumpkins to homes near her Mesa Verde office. This year, when the fates conspired to leave her pumpkin-less, she decided to donate the money she would have spent on them to three elementary schools. "I'm trying to turn a negative into a positive," Torelli said.

Kent Elliott has an orange thumb. He won a neighborhood challenge by growing a pumpkin that weighed in at 362 pounds, which beat out the other 15 competitors who bought in at $20 apiece. Some of them came close, though, with gourds in the 300- to 315-pound range. Elliott grew the pumpkin from a seedling about an inch-and-a-half tall. One was given to each of the Costa Mesa neighbors in a small cup full of soil. The growing process was relatively straightforward: just frequent watering and occasional helpings of Miracle-Gro, but the weighing process was a bit of a spectacle.

As the moon rose above California Elementary School on Friday night, masked and cloaked figures emerged from nearby parking lots. Students, their families and community members, some dressed in costume, celebrated the spooky Oct. 31st holiday early at the elementary school's seventh annual Halloween Hoot. Cari Christie, president of the Parent-Teacher Assn., helped organize the carnival, which aims to entertain and bring families together to raise money for the school's foundation.

Holiday shopping is in full gear this weekend at Fashion Island, starting with the annual tree lighting ceremony tonight and Saturday at 6 p.m., as well as special events at select stores. This year's theme is "The Key to Christmas," and the program features Orange County High School of the Arts students. Special guests include Tony Award nominee Jodie Benson, the voice of Ariel in "The Little Mermaid." Today, Garys Per Donna will host an Isabella Fiore trunk show from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Customers will receive a free gift with any Isabella Fiore purchase or special order.

Wilma’s Patio celebrated it’s 25th anniversary with a special thank you to loyal customers, some whom have been visiting the Balboa Island eatery on a regular basis since day one. A special reception Sunday evening packed the iconic restaurant, in some spots standing room only, with many patrons who have become more than just customers over the years. Founder Wilma Staudinger sat in one of the booths surrounded by friends and restaurant visitors offering their “thank yous” and sharing memories of the good old days.

Not this year. No way, no how. That's "no" as in... no. No ghosts, no goblins, nothing that goes bump in the night. Don't even ask. Everybody is jumpy enough right now without having things pop out of the shadows and go "boo." At a time when a small tear in a bag of Equal can bring an entire city to a halt and people are opening their mail in wet suits and gas masks, a kinder, gentler Halloween is what we're after. This depresses me greatly because, as you know, I am a big fan of the Pumpkin Thing.

As the moon rose above California Elementary School on Friday night, masked and cloaked figures emerged from nearby parking lots. Students, their families and community members, some dressed in costume, celebrated the spooky Oct. 31st holiday early at the elementary school's seventh annual Halloween Hoot. Cari Christie, president of the Parent-Teacher Assn., helped organize the carnival, which aims to entertain and bring families together to raise money for the school's foundation.

Optimus Prime, Elmo, Rapunzel and even Darth Vader visited South Coast Plaza last weekend - all in the name of helping children. The 21st annual Pumpkins and Pancakes event offered up the aforementioned breakfast staple from Plum's Cafe & Catering, along with fruit kebabs, pastries, quiches and various beverages to raise money for Court Appointed Special Advocates of Orange County (CASA), Orangewood Children's Foundation and Children's Hospital of Orange County Children's Foundation.

The moral of the story was the importance of learning to work together, but there was also a more delicious take away. When a mummy, ghost, vampire, witch and bat work together, the reward is pumpkin pie, lots of pumpkin pie. Geoff "Chef Geoff" Ianniello visited two Victoria Elementary School classes Thursday to read the Halloween favorite "Big Pumpkin" by Erica Silverman and S.D. Schindler followed by a serving of the fall dessert. Ianniello, the operations manager for a Network for a Healthy California, didn't whip up just any ol' pumpkin pie for teachers Tomi and Tracy Scofield's special day classes, but a dessert of his own creation.

It looked like a small cup of light-orange goo. Most of the students seemed hesitant to try it. But not Erick Tadeo. The 8-year-old immediately took a heaping spoonful of pumpkin parfait, pronounced it was good and gave it two thumbs up. Jill Wooten's kindergarten and Tomi Scofield's mostly first-grade special day classes at Victoria Elementary School in Costa Mesa got cooking Wednesday morning as part of the Network for a Healthy California's mission...

IRVINE - As the tractor-pulled wagons slowed to a stop, smell was the first indicator that the youngsters were about to come face to face with barnyard animals. The first-grade students were not pleased. "It smells stinky," said Taylor Park, 6, making a face as some of her classmates covered their noses. Lincoln Elementary School on Friday took its three first-grade classes on the Newport Beach school's annual field trip to Tanaka Farms, a 30-acre working organic farm on University Drive.

Daniel Villalpando, with a furtive smile, pushed down his mini catapult as his classmates, all lined up on either side of a tape measure, sprang forward, yelling in surprise as the candy pumpkin flew past them. "Wow!" yelled classmate Logan Donahoe. "It went over the measuring tape!" They had set a class record. At Woodland Elementary School, Nancy Jang's second-grade class held the finals of its Pumpkin Chunkin Project using catapults individually made out of tongue depressors and rubber bands to see who could "chunk" their pumpkin the farthest.

There's something nearly magical that occurs in a pumpkin patch - no Disney fairy godmother required. "What's amazing is that you see these 3-year-olds, who never would have eaten a vegetable soup before, come back to the classroom after visiting the farm and want to eat the vegetables," said Sandi Breakbush, principal of Grace Christian Schools in Lake Forest. Each fall season, Grace Christian and other schools across Orange County take hundreds of young students to Tanaka Farms in Irvine.

COSTA MESA — South Coast Plaza might be associated with shopping and restaurants, but the center also hosts Pumpkins and Pancakes, an annual October event that benefits children in need. Sunday's installment of the 20-year-old tradition drew a crowd of about 1,200 to raise money for the Children's Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) Children's Foundation, Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of Orange County and Orangewood Children's Foundation. "One-hundred percent of the money that we raise from this event goes to all the three charities that are presented with us today," said event organizer Jennifer Segerstrom, who was dressed as a devil in black horns, a long black robe and a spider necklace.

In Newport Beach's Eastbluff neighborhood, there is a small street called Arbutus where neighbors know each other's names, have watched each other's children grow and get together every year for a Halloween pumpkin carving party. After 25 years hosting the party that introduced neighbor to neighbor, Betsy Livingston, 50, is putting her yearly tradition to bed. Neighbors though can't say enough about what the mother of three has done to bring the street together. "We're just thankful to the Livingstons for making our neighborhood feel like an actual neighborhood," said Jen Baker, who was helping her daughter Tessa, 7, carve a pumpkin heavier than her. Livingston and her husband Dan hosted their final pumpkin carving party Saturday night.

I like Halloween. Not for the sweets. Not for the costumes. Not for the haunted houses. I like it for the pancakes. Pumpkins and Pancakes, really. Two things that go together about as well as chicken and waffles. The annual event by the same name at South Coast Plaza is one to which I always look forward. Not only is it a fun activity, where they serve good breakfast and entertain children with music, crafts and character appearances, but it benefits Orange County youngsters in the toughest of circumstances.